Crete: Sissi, Knossos Palace & Heraklion (& Cats)

Some sun was most certainly needed after a what seemed like a never-ending crappy British winter, so I headed off to the island of Crete for a few days with a handsome boy to get some vitamin D into my frozen bones…

We were staying at the Castello Boutique Resort & Spa hotel in Sissi. We arrived at around 11:30PM and were delighted to find that our room had been upgraded to one with a jacuzzi on the balcony 😀

The hotel staff had laid out meat, bread and cheese plates for us, and a bottle of red wine. I was pretty made up!

Day in Sissi

I was pretty excited when I saw the vast array of yummy foods I could eat the next morning at the hotel’s breakfast buffet. On the first day I opted for two plates; one with a poached egg, toast, mushrooms and salad, and a bowl of the most fabulous Greek yogurt I’ve ever tasted with cereals, fruit, and a gigantic dried fig. I also had seconds 🙂

This little fella wouldn’t stop staring at me whilst I had my breakfast, so I nicknamed him ‘Breakfast Cat‘.

We went for a bit of a walk around the island and I met some more cats!

The first day was really rainy, so after running back to the hotel as a rain storm started, we stayed inside playing games and checking out the hotel pool and tiny gym.

That evening, we went out for dinner at a little family tavern called ‘Neromilos‘ about ten minutes walk from the hotel. The lady who served us was so lovely and welcoming, and gave us some complimentary starters – a basket full of bread, a beetroot/yogurt dip and a small homemade curry dish (she stressed that it obviously wasn’t Greek, but people tended to like it).

We wanted to try some traditional Greek dishes, so got some stuffed vine leaves, and the lady suggested we order these deep fried courgettes with cheese on top. They were good! Red wine in a jug was a great addition too.

We shared a moussaka between us, and yes, it was delicious!

After this, we were also given free cheesecake for dessert (it was fabulous but my photo does not do it justice so I’ll leave it out), and a shot of Raki ‘for the road’. We loved this place, highly recommended!

The sun started to finally make an appearance as we tipsily walked back to the hotel. This church is right next to the hotel; I thought it was pretty.

Day at Knossos Palace & Heraklion

The next day was beautifully sunny and warm so I was able to get some photos of the hotel in the sunshine 🙂

View from our hotel room:

Our balcony and jacuzzi:

I decided to up my breakfast game and had this delicious bowl of Greek yogurt (seriously couldn’t get enough of that stuff!) and muesli topped with little biscuits with a hole in the middle, cut up apple, chopped nuts and grated coconut, and fruit slices, cucumber and another fig on the side. This would have been one of multiple bowls…

After breakfast, we hired a car and drove to the Palace of Knossos, which is an archaeological site on ruins of an ancient palace (think about 1100 BC).

Parts of it (like this) were reconstructed by a guy called Sir Arthur Evans in the 20th Century, with his vision of what they would have looked like at the time.

It’s a pretty cool place, and we enjoyed wandering around the ruins in the sunshine for an hour or so.

One of the restored interiors:

After finishing up at Knossos Palace, we drove into Heraklion to visit the Heraklion Archaeological Museum. The museum contains all of the articles dug up at the site – pots, statues, weapons etc. There is so much there spread over two floors, it was overwhelming.

There was a model of the palace in the museum, as it is thought to have looked in its glory days:

There were so many pots in the museum that I started to become very pot-blind after a while! These were some of the more impressive ones; they were taller than me:

Heraklion

After all of that history, we were in dire need of some fuel. So we walked into Heraklion and went into Minos restaurant, which had caught my eye from the street.

There was a cute little canary in a cage behind where I was sitting 🙂

We ordered a Greek salad and gyros (cooked meat with flatbread) which came with tzatziki. The complimentary basket of bread was of course there as well. It all tasted fantastic.

After that, we had a further wander around Heraklion; saw the Morosini Fountain in Lions Square…

…Heraklion City Hall…

…and Agios Titos Church, which is a beautiful building.

We then wandered along by the port and Koules Fortress…

…and had a much longer than expected walk along a path heading out to sea and curving around. All that walking made me crave dessert.

For ‘dinner’, we found a place near our hotel selling crepes and cocktails. So, I ordered a crepe with chocolate sauce and ice cream, and a banana daiquiri. Holiday diet!

I also found some more cats – these ones jumped out of a bin and came to say hi 🙂

The Crete adventures continued in the next post, where we went to Plaka and the Island of Spinalonga, a former leper colony…